


Permit me this Extravagance

by vocativecomma



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-19
Updated: 2012-07-19
Packaged: 2017-11-10 06:56:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/463471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vocativecomma/pseuds/vocativecomma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some musings on sight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Permit me this Extravagance

I think I might know what sight is.

You're six years old. You're at a barbecue at your neighbor's house. The parents are on the deck, talking about whatever parents talk about, and you've been sent upstairs with the rest of the kids. Andrea is ten, and her new breasts have made her wise. She tells you all about something called s-e-x, in whirlwind detail, using Barbies as visual aids, and though you only understand about a third of what she does, you are thrilled with a nimble sort of certainty you've never imagined could exist, a knowledge made all the more electric simply because it is unspeakable.

*

You are older, now, perhaps twelve or thirteen. You're taking the bus to a dentist's appointment because your mother had a meeting and couldn't drive you. There's an old woman sitting directly to your left. She is heinously, unescapably fat. Her shirt is splotched with ketchup and mustard and other unidentifiable substances. "I hate to trouble you, dear," she says, "but do you have the time?" The part of your brain that is just beginning to grasp what poetry is frantically tries to tell the rest of you that something about the definite tilt of her chin says that this woman used to be beautiful, and if you looked at her hard enough, you'd find some fragments of poetry, and if you looked harder still, the entire story of that beauty might come barreling out to meet you. 

"It's half past one," you say, and you burrow into your clean, clean jacket, and you close your eyes, and you rest your head against the window, even though your mother is always telling you not to, and you gratefully retreat into a story of your own choosing.

*

You are nineteen. College is not agreeing with you. Your head is filled with ideas that become more and more bad-tempered as they begin to understand that there is nothing for them to do but to bump up against other ideas. For spring break, you go with your best friend to her parents' time-share on some tropical island. You've seen the ocean before, but Rockport is a cop-out in comparison. Your sun-starved eyes become addicted to that unmatchable shade of blue-green, and they have never felt so free. What they needed, all along, you conclude, is a little bit of endlessness. You think your newfound cure will follow you home, but it abandons you as soon as the taxi driver lifts your suitcase into his cab.  
*

 

You're twenty-four. You have a girlfriend now. The voice in your head is insisting that she has stopped caring for you. If someone were to ask why you felt that way, you wouldn't be able to answer. How could you? You've been courted by that same wordless sort of knowing that found you all those years ago. Right now, you are bursting with it. 

"Did I do something?" you ask, setting down your knife. "Are you angry?"

"No," she says. "I'm just tired. It's been a long-ass day." She even laughs a little, and you start to feel foolish. You go back to chopping carrots. 

Ten minutes later, just before she puts the chicken breasts in the oven, she looks at you again, and the bluntness of her glance registers as a physical jolt. 

"Are you sure everything's all right?" you say. "You really seem upset to me. Do you want to talk about it?"

"I wasn't upset earlier," she snaps, "but now I'm well on my way there. Sometimes I just need my space, okay? I know you're a goddamn therapist, but do you have to turn everything into a fucking psychoanalytic symposium?"

Your certainty has turned a dirty, deflated gray, and part of you is glad. But you also know that you won't be able to ignore its brightness for long.

*

Six months later, she comes to your apartment one last time to pick up the rest of her things. In an effort to be as obnoxious as possible, she puts on one of her favorite playlists, even though you've told her that brass instruments make you think of old men farting. When she leaves, you start washing dishes, as that seems to be the most logical activity to do under the circumstances. The music is swallowed up by the splash of the water and the growl of the disposal. Or so you think. When your laptop runs out of power, and the track cuts off abruptly, a fork slides through your fingertips and lands somewhere unplottable. It's two o'clock in the afternoon in the middle of summer, but the silence has invoked a particularly resilient kind of darkness.

**Author's Note:**

> I am totally blind. This piece was inspired by some visual experiences I have had. Substances of a green variety may or may not have been involved.


End file.
